i'm a big movie buff. i'm a big reader. so for me, it's just -- it's the perfect thing to be able to flit from one subject to another because that's kind of the way my mind goes. it's the way i read the paper. >> you're one of the first openly gay op-ed columnists that we've seen. it's no longer as shocking as it would have been 20 years ago. how has it gone down? what reaction do you get? you wrote a fantastic piece about gay marriage the other day. i was particularly moved by what you said about your own father and how he dealt with you and your partner. how is that kind of column going down generally? >> where the world has changed so much, i get amazingly lovely e-mails from readers when i write about that topic. i also get some hate mail. society hasn't come as far as a lot of us would like to see it travel, but the reception's been very, very warm. it's a real privilege to be able to write about that issue as an openly gay man. it's funny, when we talked about me taking on an op-ed column, none of us said, hey, we'll